Krautrock, to most people it’s some kind of vegetable. Well, the vegetable noted is only part of the name, which is sauerkraut. To other people, it’s has to deal with something German, which is true also. And rest, well, have no absolute true whatsoever. So let me explain to you, Krautrock happened to be part of a name of a musical scene in Germany dating back in the late 1960’s and through the mid 1970’s. Most of the bands that were the tour de force of the scene were Can, Faust, Neu!, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, and many others. Some of these bands would gain success outside of Germany, but most of them would remain in their native country. Their influence, however, would spread through the next couple decades, inspiring many bands such as Radiohead, U2, any group considered Techno, and the list keeps going on. The roots to the music scene started as far back in the early half of the 1960’s, when The Beatles were still a house band for a bar in Hamburg. Some of the main contributors came from the town of Cologne, and from there would make their way to Berlin. Some of the people in the scene were classically trained, and mostly other were art students. However, they all had one thing in common; they wanted to make an identity of themselves as being German. Ever since the end of World War II, Germany was literally stripped away with it’s own culture and was replaced by the people whom occupied them, which were the Americans, the British, and the French. Most of their culture was based mostly from those countries, so there was nothing around that could be considered German. So as the psychedelic era ushered in a whole new way of making music, German bands began to embrace it and add their own touch. Mixing classical music, which most of the bands such as Can studied modern composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, and with experimental rock music such as The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. Playing with traditional instruments such as guitar, bass, and drums, the bands also mixed electronic sounds with keyboards and synthesizers. Kraftwerk would become the first all electronic band, using just keyboards and synthesizers, and would become the innovators of techno and other forms of dance music to come. It would be in 1968 when the term Krautrock would emerge in the public thanks to the first German Rock Festival held in Essen. This term, as how every other label is toward any genre of music, would not suite well to the bands put into it. The band Faust, especially, tried to distance themselves as far away of the term as they can. All through the 1970’s, the bands released many classic albums, such as Can’s Tago Mago in 1970, along with Future Days in 1973; Faust released The Faust Tapes and IV in the same year, and Tangerine Dream released Phaedra in 1974. But the best known from all the groups to emerge from the scene was Kraftwerk, whose 1975 title track and album Autobahn was an international hit. But the popularity only turned out to be short lived. There really was no indication of when the scene died out, some believe 1975. However, many more bands would continue on and many other would emerge afterward. But it was this scene that created the identity of what German culture is.
